Ercanbrack#linuxtablet #linuxaudio I spent the last few hours reading & researching. #ansible is a total overkill for my needs. It looks like what I am looking for is called a, “Post-Installation script”. I’m just wanting to speed up the process of going from a blank SSD to a custom fully installed & configured OS, including my preferred apps. This is for one machine (my laptop), not an enterprise level deployment solution for thousands of machines. I think a post-installation script will suffice. 😎
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio I’ve spent the last several days going through all of the open source and freeware native #linux audio plugins and testing them in #ardour and #reaper to see which ones scale properly on high resolution screens. I’m down to just a few that I haven’t yet tested. There are less than I had hoped for, and some that I really wanted don’t scale up. However, overall, I have a pretty decent-sized list of native plugins that work.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio My next plan is to start exploring what native linux audio plugins are available in the commercial realm that work on high resolution screens. I have several plugins that I have purchased over the years (while I had been using DAWs on Windows), that have Linux versions. For example, Uhe’s Diva, TAL-Software’s Tal-Sampler, and Disco DSP’s Bliss Sampler all offer native linux plugins, and I already have the registration serials for authenticating them.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio I’m getting a pretty good idea as to who the best plugin companies are. I currently have a high opinion of products from the following companies: #uhe, #talsoftware, #discodsp, and #audiodamage. While there isn’t as much native to choose from, there is certainly enough software to do pro audio work with high resolution screens on Linux in the same way that Windows and Mac users do. Remember, the majority of Windows software doesn’t scale up either. 😉 👍
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio I think I have found the grand majority of native linux audio plugins that scale up to support high resolution screens. I’m absolutely certain that one can have a perfectly fine experience with doing pro audio on modern hardware on linux. There are few (if any) reasons for me to go back to Windows ever—except where my job requires it. I certainly seen no reason any more to use anything other than linux at home.
#linuxtablet Now that I have a good idea as to what I can do with pro audio on linux, I’m turning my focus back to finding apps for regular usage that work great with high resolution screens & touch pads. At some point, I intend to put together a post installation script to speed up the re-installation process for when I need to do so. It is a long process of testing apps one by one to confirm that they work well on high resolution touchscreens, but I’m finding success in the effort. 😎 👍
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio Every time I start to think I’m finally approaching the Linux summit, the fog clears just enough for me to recognize that I’ve barely set foot out of base camp.I just learned about pacnew & pacsave files. How in the world did I miss this in all of my reading?! During my entire process of testing audio apps for high resolution support, I’ve probably installed, upgraded, & uninstalled hundreds of apps—never once managing my pacnew & pacsave files. My OS is probably a mess!
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio Well, amazingly enough, I ended with relatively few pacnew and pacsave files. The ones I had were mostly about updated mirrors. Only one had any significant importance, because it allowed me to put a setting that I had changed in GRUB back into my config file that I wasn’t aware gad been changed. Over all, pacdiff and meld work satisfactorily.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio I do admit though, that I wish a lot of this pacman maintenance was automated. Somehow APT on the Debian family of distros manages config file changes & updates very well. I wonder if there are additional helper apps out there for pacman that might further automate the management process.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio Well, to bring everyone up to speed... I learned more about doing maintenance on Arch based systems—particularly pacnew files. I think I made a wrong choice or merged something backwards. Long story short, I messed up my system & reinstalled. EndeavourOS released “Apollo” just the day before, so I got to try the new install. This is the best EndeavourOS release yet! I had zero problems and the entire re-installation took only a couple of minutes. I’m back in action! 😎 👍
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio I’ve got my laptop that I use & update almost daily. I’ve also got a desktop that I use occasionally. While Arch & EndeavourOS have worked well with my laptop, I know that I won’t be able to give the desktop nearly as much attention, & certainly not the amount of constant maintenance a bleeding edge distro needs. It occurred to me that I don’t have to use just one distro for both machines. This is where the contrasting benefits of Bleeding edge vs Stable distros come in.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio I realized that I can utilize the contrasting benefits of my two favorite distro families: the Debian & Arch families. Both of these distro families have the largest repositories, so software is not likely to be a problem. I can continue using EndeavourOS for my laptop, but for my desktop, I can use Debian. Debian is ultra stable & requires very little maintenance. It only needs updates occasionally. This is a perfect example of playing to each distro’s strengths.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio The things I like about the Debian and Arch distro families are:
* Both have large repositories
* Both are independent distros, free of corporate influence
* Both have huge support communities
* Both have excellent wiki documentation
* Both are very flexible—can be as minimal or as full featured as I want
* Both offer numerous Desktop Environment choices
The only major differentiating feature is that one is bleeding edge, and the other is 2 years behind and stable.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio It occurs to me that with the continuous work of mainlining the real time kernel patches, there will soon be little need for custom kernels (outside of the compile-time configuration options like the hertz of the timing scheduler), to achieve good low latency operation. In fact, since the majority of the RT patches have already been mainlined, the generic kernel can already do quite well now. The future of Linux continues to look brighter and brighter every day. 😎 👍
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio I’ve been studying pipewire (with emphasis on its uses within the realm of Linux Pro Audio) to see if it offers any relevance in the post “host as session manager” linux audio world.
As a quick refresher, Jack Audio Connection Kit ( #jack ) was created as a form of low latency inter-app audio&midi communication. This, along with JACK session management, was the original foundation of Linux pro audio—prior to the existence of audio DAWs that host VST or LV2 plugins.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio Pulseaudio & JACK are audio servers with completely different purposes that have competed for the same space just above the ALSA layer in the audio stack. Conflicts between these two servers, as well as other issues (outside of the scope of this discussion) made this a less than ideal situation. Pipewire is a new replacement for these servers that solves several problems, including allowing functionalities of both to peacefully exist within in a single secure server.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio One thing I learned is that pipewire’s concept of what a session is and does is different from JACK’s concept. #wireplumber, the current #pipewire session manager does not include the ability to save and restore audio applications (along with their jack connections. This is the whole point of #jack session management—to easily come back to a project later and not have to hook everything up again before starting to work on a project.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio The #pipewire documentation seems to indicate that the pro audio concept of inter-app audio #sessionmanagement is outside of the scope of the project, and recommends #nsm, the New Session Manager (that currently stands as the reigning JACK session manager) as the session manager for pro audio in the post-JACK server world. As far as pipewire is concerned, all jack apps should work, but my interest is with understanding and supporting the new technology and standards.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio So to sum everything up thus far, #pipewire replaces #jack, and #nsm manages the applications in the pro audio session. #Agordejo is the recommended GUI interface for NSM. There seems to be several JACK graph based patch panel apps that can be used to make the actual jack connections between the audio apps, prior to saving the whole session with Agordejo. I’m not clear yet on which is the recommended or the best of the lot.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio According to the Linux Audio Wiki:
https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/apps/categories/nsm
There don’t seem to be too many apps specifically supporting NSM yet. And only some of these apps also support high resolution screens, which is essential for my purposes. However, NSM seems to have limited support for some audio apps that don’t support NSM. “Some apps are programmed to save their current state when they receive the “SIGUSR1” Unix signal, and NSM is able to send this signal to such apps.”
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio The state of #jack inter-app audio is alive and well, and there are many supportive users requesting it for current linux audio apps. However, according to something I read about Paul Davis recently, the main reason he turned the JACK project over to others is because DAWs on Linux now support plugins (LV2, VST, etc), and he felt that JACK’s usefulness was reduced due to the popularity of plugins. That may or may not turn out to be true. I’ll have to watch and see.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio In the meantime, while watching to see how things pan out with Linux inter-app audio through jack apps on pipewire, I’m going to start testing to see which of these apps support high resolution screens—because if they don’t also support high resolution screens (along with everything else), I won’t use them—everything is too small.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio There are a lot of depreciated technologies & standards with Linux Pro Audio, & I’ve been trying to filter these things out while putting together my high resolution linux touchscreen-tablet/DAW hybrid. For example, standards like OSS, DSSI, LADSPA, JACK Session manager, Ladis, Gladis, etc.—most of these technologies have long been abandoned or depreciated, yet hang out in repositories year after year. This is why I’m building a personal list of apps that are current.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio My system is claiming that there are a couple of corrupt dependencies being downloaded from the upgrade batch. I’ve tried changing mirrors, looking up the error, etc. I’m sure that a more knowledgeable person could probably find this an easy fix, I can’t be constantly spending all my time resolving problems. Also, the maintenance bleeding edge distros require is too much for me. I need to find a medium between stable & rolling releases. I’m looking back at Debian.
I’ve been doing some deep reading. An interesting setting came out with kernel version 5.12 – Dynamic Preemption support. The “PREEMPT_DYNAMIC” boot time option allows a full preemption override, regardless of the compile-time defaults. The majority of the real time patches used for allowing low latency audio has already been mainlined into the kernel (the rest is soon to follow). There is almost no need anymore to use custom compiled kernels!!
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio Furthermore, the compile-time midi jitter issue that comes from not using a 1kHz timer setting compiled into the linux kernel is a thing of the past with the high resolution timers used nowadays. A tickless CONFIG_NO_HZ_IDLE system that isn’t limited to 1kHz performs better, and it’s already built in in most cases. If your kernel has CONFIG_NO_HZ_IDLE=y then you’re running a tickless kernel. To check if your kernel is tickless, check your kernel configuration file.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio So, in short, if you are using a regularly compiled 5.12 or higher generic Linux kernel (commonly compiled to use a tickless kernel nowadays) there is no need to compile a special kernel for low latency, jitter-free audio/midi work. You only need to use boot time options in GRUB. Kernel version 5.16 has further USB audio card latency improvements. The rest of the real time patches are soon being mainlined. Things just keep getting better for pro audio on Linux! 😎 👍
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio Ok, so it turns out that my EndeavourOS problem was a bug in the ISO of the new Apollo release of EndeavourOS. It wasn’t caused by anything I did or didn’t do. In fact, it was fixed by an extremely easy one line “pacman” command from the command prompt. In addition, the ISO has been patched and the download no longer contains the bug that broke my system updates. Good work EndeavourOS team!
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio My recent system breakage illustrates a point. I’ve been very pleased with EndeavourOS on the whole, & find little fault with the OS or Team. I realize that this is the nature of rolling releases. Lately, I’ve been thinking of trying to find a distro that fits between the stable & rolling release models. The ideal would be to have very few show stopping bugs, fairly recent software, the need to do updates every 1 to 2 months, & very little additional maintenance.
#linuxtablet #linuxaudio. Debian Stable seldom breaks & doesn’t require a lot of maintenance. However, if you get caught in a worst case scenario like I did several months ago during Debian’s distro update freeze, you may be stuck with bugs for a long while—possibly 6 months or more from the time the bug gets fixed upstream till the time your system downloads the newly fixed version. The question to be determined is, will Debian Testing or Sid give me a better result than EndeavourOS?
#linux #linuxtablet #linuxaudio
Regarding #touchscreen capable Linux desktop environments, I’ve personally had the best luck with #gnome. Does anyone know of any desktop environments that are as good as (or even better) than Gnome when it comes to working chiefly from a touchscreen? Is there anything new and exciting on the horizon?
I’m searching. Other than #debian what other distro offers this?
* The most software (including 3rd party repositories)
* Independent—free of corporate influence
* Huge support community
* Excellent documentation
* Very flexible—can be minimal or full featured
* Numerous Desktop Environment choices
* Supports multiple chip architectures
* Between stable & bleeding edge (similar to #debiantesting)
* Dependable & requires little manual intervention (unlike #archlinux)
#linux #linuxtablet #linuxaudio While I have been trying to find my ideal distro, I’ve realized that there are additional things important to me:
1. How the distro works firmware (especially non free firmware)
2. Development innovation—I’m trying to find a distro that is a leader in the Linux world and uses the newest technologies (ie wayland, pipewire, etc) but doesn’t require the maintenance and doesn’t break like rolling releases periodically do.
I’m investigating Fedora.
#linux #linuxtablet #linuxaudio I have seen (and finally understand) the future of Linux! An #immutableOS running distro-agnostic #sandboxed packaging formats! I just learned about OS # immutability and all of the puzzle pieces of the future of linux fell into place for me! The future for linux looks absolutely brilliant!!
#linux #linuxtablet #linuxaudio #immutability #immutableOS
“An immutable OS is one in which some, or all, of the operating system file systems, are read-only, and cannot be changed. Immutable operating systems have a lot of advantages....” No viruses! no instability!, no dependency hell!
With immutable OS technology, along with distro-agnostic sandboxed packaging formats, #dependencyhell, viruses, and instabilities are a thing of the past!
#linux #linuxtablet #linuxaudio
There are already several #immutable linux #distros available. Run any of the following on top: #flatpaks, #appimages #snaps, Compatibility layers like #WINE or #Anbox, #virtualized OSes, tools like #distrobox, #emulators, etc, & never worry about system stability again—pieces of the next generation linux puzzle!
I was already excited by the concept of #distroagnostic packaging uniting the linux realm, but the ideas of an #ImmutableOS completes the picture!
#linux #LinuxAudio #LinuxTablet #ImmutableOS
I found this treasure trove of info about immutable OS systems:
#Linux #LinuxAudio #LinuxTablet #ImmutableOS
Here’s an interesting starter for those interested in Immutable OSes:
https://www.ypsidanger.com/setting-yourself-up-for-success-before-moving-to-fedora-silverblue/
Setting yourself up for success before trying Fedora Silverblue
I went on the Linux Downtime podcast to talk about this, consider it the audio version of this post.TLDR: Fedora Silverblue is a variant of Fedora, however there seems to be confusion on exactly what the day-to-day differences are. In this post I hope to go over some of
#Linux #LinuxTablet #LinuxAudio
I am watching the following developing tech with interest:
* Immutable OSes (Like Fedora Silverblue)
* Anbox
* Flatpak Pro Audio Plugins
Thoughts:
* I don’t see enough Flatpak apps for SilverBlue
* Anbox doesn’t easily work without an Ubuntu distro
* Flatpak packaged VST/LV2 audio plugins that work with a Flatpak packaged audio host work!
Proof of concept:
https://fediverse.blog/~/TheVostronixBlog/Music%20Producer%20%2B%20Flatpak%20%3D%20Fun
None of these are developed enough for me, but they progressing nicely 😎 👍
#Linux #LinuxTablet #LinuxAudio
My refined my plan:
I’ll use #Fedora as my base OS—it is leading edge, & fresh enough. Then, I’ll use #Ubuntu and #AndroidX86 on #KVM & #QEMU (with PCI passthrough) for touch apps & programs that Fedora doesn’t have. Running a type-1 #BareMetal #hypervisor should get me up to near-native speeds. Finally, I’ll use #WINE #Flatpaks #Snaps and #Appimages for everything else. I’ll only install the absolute essentials on Fedora—not #immutable but probably dependable.
#linux #LinuxTablet #LinuxAudio
Modern #virtualization is not yet #Wayland friendly—very little of it works well with pure Wayland. I’m going to have to look at the possibility of #Xwayland for the virtualization side of my project. I had hoped to try for pure Wayland.
I’ve learned that the #OpenSource virtualization stack, #KVM / #QEMU / #Libvirt / #Virt-Manager, has better performance than #Virtualbox, but requires a higher learning curve. It sounds like a fair trade off. 🙂
#Linux #LinuxTablet #LinuxAudio
Supposedly #RedHat has decided to depreciate #VirtManager in favor of #Cockpit. Cockpit will likely get Red Hat’s money instead of Virt-Manager, although development of Virt-Manager will still continue—likely independently. Cockpit seems modern and nice, but apparently requires hosts and guests to use #Systemd, which would rule out my usage of virtualizing OSes like #Androidx86, I believe. I guess I could use #VirtualBox for those OSes in given no other option.
#Linux #LinuxTablet #LinuxAudio #Virtualization
I’ve decided that #PCIPassthrough will be less than ideal for my purposes—I want to simultaneously use my host, along with my guests. I’ll have to be satisfied with the performance boost that #KVM/QEMU provides over virtualbox.
#linux #LinuxTablet #LinuxAudio #fedora #debian
The last few weeks, I’ve been testing and comparing fedora and Debian Testing. Both are fine, modern operating systems. I don’t think there is a perfect distro, but these two seem to be the best for me. Right now, I’ve got Fedora installed. This may be the distro that I stick with. I like how it has the newest tech and still remains very polished. It may not contain as many apps as other OSes, but it contains the best ones.
#Linux #LinuxTablet #LinuxAudio
When combining the various 3rd party repositories with the default #Fedora repository, most of the software I need is there. I have to do a bit of searching, since the #COPR doesn’t have a great way to search its various repositories, but I’m getting the process figured out. Also, #Pipewire is working very well! Fedora has the newest tech and has new software, yet doesn’t require daily maintenance. It strikes the best balance possible for me.
#Linux #LinuxTablet #LinuxAudio
Wow! Time flies when one gets busy! I can’t believe how long it has been since my last microblog post about my LinuxTablet project. To quickly sum up the last few months:
I’m still satisfied with Fedora. I have learned how to tune my system for stable low latency audio. I still primarily use #Reaper as my #DAW. I have gathered a decent collection of #MusicProduction tools that work natively on Linux. I no longer have any reason at all for #Microsoft in my home.
Furthermore, there has been a huge influx of people with similar interests to #Mastodon lately. My feed is quite interesting and pleasant—full of topics I like: #Linux #LinuxAudio #MusicProduction #LibreMusicProduction, etc.
If you have similar interests, let’s follow each other! 🙂
#Linux #LinuxTablet #LinuxAudio #Fedora
I just now got around to upgrading from Fedora 36 to Fedora 37. I truly think it was the most easy and problem-free upgrade I’ve ever had with a Linux distribution! Well done Fedora team!! 😎 👍
luetage@ercanbrack Never experienced serious problems with any past Fedora update. Sometimes you want to wait it out, if your favorite extension isn’t ready yet is all.
taaronJust started this morning and I'm pleasantly encouraged to see a lot of the same things!